The Yadkin Ford was mentioned by Hugh McAden, an itinerant preacher, in 1755, and crossed the Yadkin River at the west end of the Big Island.  A sand bar from the island to the Rowan side can still be seen when the river is low.

The Rowan county court ordered a road from Bethabara (the Moravian Old Town in present Winston-Salem) to the Yadkin Ford in 1763.  On the river's south side, John Long Sr. had been appointed Commissioner of the road from Salisbury to the Yadkin Ford in 1758.  A ferry at the location was first mentioned in 1780, and John Long's (Jr.) Ferry is found on an 1814 map.  "John Long's Road" became the foundation for our present Long Street through Salisbury and Spencer and was referred to in a 1780 deed as "the Great Road Leading from Salisbury to the Yadkin."  Thomas Cowan and then the Hedricks later ran this ferry.  The Yadkin Ford and its associated ferry intermittently formed the main link between Salisbury and Lexington, and played a vital role in the transportation and settlement of the region.

Revolutionary War camps on both sides of the river here in the fall of 1780 served as the region's military headquarters under General Jethro Sumner, and the camps swelled with General William Smallwood's and Daniel Morgan's troops.  When these forces pursued Cornwallis into South Carolina, they left a small contingent to guard the ford.  Several months later Greene's patriot army crossed at the nearby Trading Ford, putting the swollen Yadkin River between his army with the Salisbury District supplies and Cornwallis and the superior British force.

During the War between the States, the ford was protected by a small earthwork beside the Cowan Ferry Road. 

Road traces on both sides of the Yadkin River remain.  This area with its 250 years of transportation, settlement and military history faces oblivion to make way for eight new interstate highway lanes.

©2002 Ann Brownlee